Optimal Raw settings and converters

[jimbobuk]

I'm generally very happy with my m8 so far.. its a pleasure to use, and a pleasure to hold (though i still dont like the camera strap eyelets and how they cut into your grip when you hold it!).

I upload my photos to flickr mostly here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimbobuk/

Generally i'm very happy with them, a friend of mine commented how he didn't like the m8 drawing, pointing out that at 100% it looked like it had a watercolour effect on.. I've taken a look and can see it occasionally. I own a fuji F30 compact which has great high ISO performance but it sacrficies 100% quality with a very very harsh filter of this kind applied.

My M8 i always use capture one to convert my raw files over.. I tinker with the sharpness settings and leave everything else as is. I do remember reading some people having issues with m8 file quality and recommending turning off sharpening and other things.. I've always been and continue to be happy with it, its really only a minor thing when you start peeking at pixels, still i'd be interested if anyone had any suggestions, or whether they'd noticed similar things at 100% views of their files.

To give an idea of what i'm talking about look at this picture

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne...8963511&size=l

and view the original file. The textures on the sharper leaves and the light column kind of show what i'm talking about, though for the latter its clear some of that effect is in the objects actual texture. I may use this file to experiment with settings but any help with this would be really appreciated to give a headstart perhaps. Settings for C1 that definitely seem to help this issue would be great to know.

Beyond that i've got my charger going back to leica for repair exchange, but i got my battery fully charged so i should be able to unleash my "new" noctilux some more when i actually get some free time.

[Ronald M]

All I see jaggies on curved lines. This looks like a fine quality Leica image

[MikeL]

How does it look printed?

[kuzano]

I suspect what you are talking about is, in the digital camera world, called "Moire Effect". I can't recall exactly what causes it as I sit here right now. However, I think that's what you want to study with regard to digital images and specifically with regard to your camera. You should be able to google or yahoo "moire" or find a forum for your camera and model. DPreview.com and Steves-digicams.com both have model specific digital forums for many cameras, as do other sites. Also, the digital forums at photo.net would be a good place to seek answers, if the problem is "moire".

[jimbobuk]

Thanks guys.

I see occasional jaggies on diagonals, and as kuzano points out this can be caused by aliasing at least, with the weaker anti-aliasing filter on the M8 to blame.. but the added details you gain from having the weaker filter is definitely worth it.

I have an R-D1 as well and the m8 files are better with the aliasing than my R-D1 files were sometimes, though perhaps i've not punished it enough yet to recreate those conditions.

MikeL you make a good point and one that i've not had chance to test yet, my hp A4 printer has gone unused for a good while, i often use photobox (online print shop in UK) to print things.. To be honest i'm really bad with that, i've not printed one of my m8 shots yet.. I enjoy sharing them online, looking at them on my CRT, notebooks, and digital projector screens. I will get some of my recent faves printed though.

I agree i'm mostly happy with the shots, i just do appreciate what my friend was saying, to explain more clearly what i mean here is a shot taken with my fuji f30 compact at ISO 1600

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne...5116457&size=l

view it at 100% (original file) and see the out of focus rendering of his hind leg to see the effect, although its all over the image really. a mottling of colour that's been done to kill all signs of "noise".. its this kind of a look that i sometimes see, only much much more slighter in some of the textures of my M8 shots viewed at 100%.. and its this that i would like to know if i could eliminate by keeping the C1 sharpness low, or overriding C1's noise reduction settings etc.

That and any other recommendations really to get the best out of the m8 files.

Cheers guys.

[Ben Z]

I've mentioned before that I stopped using C1-LE that came bundled with the M8 because I found that Camera Raw (I think it's 3.7, whatever the last version available for CS2) does a much better job for me handling the color balance, and also there is no residual sharpening when the slider is set all the way down. Plus, I don't have to go through 2 programs, I do everything in CS2.

[Richard Marks]

I have to say it looks pretty good to me! My only observation is that the green foliage has a bit of a yellow cast. It may just be my monitor. My greens looked a bit like that until I got an IR filter. That made colour ballance for foliage much better.

I am generally fairly happy with C1LE but dont doubt there may well be better software out there.

I generally shoot ISO 160 or 320 and provided their is no noise on the image I take the noise filters right off. This in itself gives me enough sharpening. I then make minor changes to contrast and finally unsharp mask in photo shop.

Best wishes


Richard

[Olsen]

I think that this leaves photo is as good as it gets from a digital camera. And it is certainly no bad example coming out of a M8.

I turn off all sharpening both in my M8 and 1Ds II. The camera sharpening applies only to the jpg files, to my knowledge. The jpg files out of M8 looks awful while the Canon ones can be used right away for printing or whatever, in most cases.

When comparing the RAW files from 1Ds II and M8; the Canon files needs a lot of sharpening, but the M8 DNG files I never - or hardly sharp at all. Neither for the web nor printing. When printing Canon files I use very low sharpening too.

I have printed a lot of large copies from the M8 on ordinary photo paper, which I think is far better than any ink jet. They look very good and hardly distinguishable compared to the 1Ds II in sizes up to A3, resolution wise. But some of them show a distinct Leica personality. Probably due to the optics which draws in a certain way, if it is Leica, Voigtländer or Zeiss.

By mistake, I printed several A4 pictures right from these awful M8 jpg files. They looked excellent when on paper. - How can that be?

I have been hoping for a Leica Software up date that would give us better looking jpg's. But that will not happen. Due to that the M8 computer does not have the capacity to handle both the DNG- and larger jpg files together. We'll have to wait untill M9. - But without a commercial sucessful M8 there won't be a M9...

[Ben Z]

Originally Posted by Olsen

IThe jpg files out of M8 looks awful while the Canon ones can be used right away for printing or whatever, in most cases.

Exactly what I found compared to my 20D too.

When comparing the RAW files from 1Ds II and M8; the Canon files needs a lot of sharpening, but the M8 DNG files I never - or hardly sharp at all. Neither for the web nor printing. When printing Canon files I use very low sharpening too.

What raw converter are you using for the M8 DNG's? If it's C1LE, even with the sharpening slider set all the way to the left there is still sharpening being applied (about equivalent in my observation, to CS2 Camera RAW slider set to 100!).